A US military court has found a US soldier not guilty of negligent homicide in the deaths of two South Korean girls who were crushed by a military vehicle.

Sergeant Fernando Nino was accused of killing the girls in a road accident outside his
base on 13 June.

The trial of his driver, Sergeant Mark Walker - also charged with negligent homicide - will begin on Thursday in the same court, at a military base in Uijeongbu north of Seoul.

Activists dismissed the trial as a sham and vowed to hold a large protest on Thursday.

"I'm shocked. I have lost words to speak," said Yoo Young-jae, one of a handful of activists outside Camp Casey on Wednesday.

Sergeant Nino would have faced up to six years in a US prison if found guilty in the deaths of the two 14-year-old girls.

Shim Mi-sun and Shin Hyo-son were walking to a friend's birthday party when they were crushed to death by a US armoured vehicle which was taking part in a training exercise in Kyonggi province, on the outskirts of Seoul.

Public anger

The US military in South Korea had rejected calls for the soldiers to stand trial in a South Korean court.

Protesters had called for trials in a South Korean court

Under a bilateral agreement, the US command has jurisdiction over military personnel while on duty. It can transfer jurisdiction to the host country on a case-by-case basis, although it has never done so.

Senior US military officials and the US ambassador to Seoul have issued repeated formal apologies over the incident - but that has failed to mollify public anger.

The case has fanned widespread anti-American sentiment - with opposition growing to the presence of 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea to counter threats from the Communist North.

Some protests have turned violent, and there have been several recent related attacks on US military personnel.